Huh. I find myself sandwiched between two superior pics in 7shots... again. The kicker was Thursday Guy dropping his highly interpretive abstract piece moments after I posted a quick shot I grabbed on the way in this morning. I could be kind to myself and claim that this hasn't been the greatest week for it, but inside I'm screaming something unintelligible about being outclassed. I need to get out of that mindset if only because I know how crippling it can be.

I'm inclined to agree with Ry, P. I really like the piece you posted, not so much in comparison to the other pieces, as they're all really different, but for what the piece provokes in me.

There's something really phenomenal about the temporality of the photos you take -- there's a photographer-protagonist, and a setting and an event in every one you've posted so far -- it's a really unique and appreciable art, and very different than the photos posted before and after you in 7 shots. N

I feel like the shots I've been taking are too concrete, and that I may be imposing myself upon them too much. I guess I'm hoping to evoke some of what I feel in addtion to communication what I see. Sometimes that may involve the story that I want the image to tell. Sometimes that doesn't go beyond "Neat!" Most of the time I end up falling short of what I'd like to do.

Like I said to D-, it's growing pains. I do appreciate your thoughts though. Thanks.

See, I've gotta interject here. "Imposing [yourself] too much on them" seems like an odd perspective to have; either you're photographing as photojournalism/documentation, which doesn't seem to be your aim, or you're photographing as an expressive/interpretive art form to convey something about your experience or observations.

Assuming I'm right and it's the latter - that the piece is a piece in itself, and not just a window onto an event - then it seems to me you *can't*, by definition, impose yourself too much on them. It's your experience that defines them, that makes them more than just chemicals recording light on paper.

It's exactly the fact that you're imposing yourself and an interpretive/selective/emotive lens on them that makes them evoke what you feel in addition to simply communicating.

It's working. Keep at it, and don't be afraid to regard it as a medium instead of a result. (Not that you necessarily are, but...)

One of the things I've found is that it's nigh on impossible to hide behind a camera. Merely by pointing the instrument in a direction, you become a participant, an actor. You may still be separate from that thing you've focused on, but the act transforms you into something other than a mere spectator.

All this is very intimidating for me, if only because I've spent the majority of my life attempting invisibility. At this point, I could go into the idea of the photograph as a therapeutic tool, but that might just get weird. Suffice to say that being behind the lens makes me feel exposed, and that that feeling makes me feel like I'm too much with the resulting images.

I really like the colors in both, and the movement in the latter. I wasn't entirely happy with mine. I didn't get the shot I wanted, and I didn't have time to go back because I was already running late for the office.

One adds it to ones friends list. There's only 7 members posting at a time, each posts one day of the week. we just had a major switchup and swapped out 3 members for 3 new ones, so it'll probably be a bit yet before anyone wants to give up their day.

umm, i agree with what some of the other people here have said: your pic is not inferior. actually thursday guy's shot didn't do anything for me. and i wouldn't say the beads are better than yours- they are two completely different types of shots. honestly, except for the white blur in the bottom left, i really think your photo rocks. i love the way the cylinder on the right seems to do two things at once- like an optical illusion or something. it's both the solid, stationary focus of the picture as well as appearing to float unanchored in space and "let go" of my eye.

how did you accomplish the shot, btw? i mess around with my camera a lot, but have no actual knowledge of how photography works in a technical sense.

Truth be known, I don't have a good sense of technical photography either. This was just me responding to something odd I caught out of the corner of my eye. You're actually looking down a panel that runs alongside an escalator. Usually, the stainless looks a great deal more opaque, but the weird quality of the light coming through the skylights brought the ripple pattern out. The white blur may also be a by-product of this, but I haven't quite figured out what happened there.